Genre analysis of Synopsis

Analysis of my synopsis through theories of genre

All films fit into a genre category, within this, they may also fit into sub-genres. For example, my film belongs to the Horror genre, of which it belongs to the sub-genre ‘slasher’. There are different ways in which the genres can be interpreted.

The first is descriptive, this is a term used to explain how we view film as belonging to a certain category or a mixture of categories. Most films share attributes with other films that are categorised similarly and thus analysed accordingly. Descriptively, our film belongs to the slasher genre as it portrays the typical group of teenagers being killed one by one by an antagonist who seems to have no plausible reason to be killing. It also fits many other codes and conventions of the slasher genre. Other films that also fit this description are ‘Halloween’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’.

Slasher films are formulaic. Generally they are very similar in that they incorporate a group of friends. In our film ‘Eve’ the group of friends consist of the typical ‘final girl’ Nora. She seems to be the quieter one of the group and her clothes reflect her slightly boring nature. On the other hand Crystal who is the typical sexually active girl of the group is dressed revealingly and wears black which symbolises death. They can be seen as binary opposites within the film.

Also as a convention of slasher films we have a benefactor this is mentioned in Propps narrative theory, a tired looking man in trampy clothing who warns the teenagers about the danger in the woods. In other films such as Halloween the benefactor is used as a red herring to keep the audience in suspense.

However our film does break conventions in the way our antagonist or ‘monster’ is a little girl as opposed to the usual masked villain we see in films such as ‘Texas chainsaw massacre’ and ‘Halloween.

Functional viewing refers to the way in which people see film in relation to contemporary life. “Collective expressions of contemporary life that strike a particular resonant chord with audiences” (Experience and meaning in genre films B.K Grant) essentially, what is the audience gaining from the experience of watching genre films. This begs the social questioning we see in particular genre films. For example, ‘what frightens us?’ which is the question associated with horror and slasher films. In our synopsis the villain or ‘evil force’ is a nine year old girl. This is important as it differs from the usual masked large man we see in other slasher films such as ‘The Texas chainsaw Massacre’. Women and young girls in particular are often seen as weak and submissive in the media, as a reflection of our undeniable patriarchal society. Yet in our film ‘Eve’ proves to be even more powerful than the alpha male of the group. This makes the audience feel uncomfortable with the fact someone who they’d expect to be innocent and harmless is in fact a ruthless killer. This begs the question-who really is safe? This seems to go against the norms of the patriarchal ideology however the male audience may relate to her as she doesn’t show any overt femininity.

Eve reflects the monstrous feminine in our film and it could be argued that she represents the innocence of childhood being lost as a reflection of the teenagers transitioning into the time of their sexual awakening. As the teens begin the point in life where they explore their sexuality, Eve is a harsh reminder of what happens when innocence is lost. Like other films such as Halloween where the killer kills a women who has been sexually active and the innocent girl lives, our film is subliminally sending the message ‘do not have sex’ as it has resulted in the killings of the teenagers. Eve represents a shattering of innocence. There are other examples of this in film such as, ‘Hard Candy.

As a producer, genre films are often a safe bet as the audience for them already exist. Audiences are familiar with particular categories and so chose them according to what they expect from them. We already know there is a fan base for horror/slasher films as there are many websites and magazines in appreciation for the genre e.g. Fangoria. This means we know there will be sales for our movie and we already have a rounded image of our target demographic. To do this with my film I must look at similar films to mine and take account of their sales and audience reviews.

Orphan, which also features a little girl who is not as innocent as she seems claimed:

Opening Weekend:

$12,871,483 (USA) (26 July 2009) (2750 Screens)

Gross:

$41,573,740 (USA) (4 October 2009)

Considering my budget will be much lower, I cannot rely on these statistics however it shows us the possibility of making a profit high and there is an audience who enjoys this sort of narrative.

Within my film intertexual references must be made in order to attract an audience satisfaction or sense of nostalgia. The first girl to die has been named ‘Crystal Lake’ this is also the name of a setting in ‘Friday the 13^th’ which was also a box office success.

According to Frank McConnell, since films reflect society, they will always involve these kinds of typical events.

The King- Establishing the state ‘the epic’

The Knight- Consolidating the state ‘the adventure romance’

The Pawn- Trapped in the institutionalised state ‘the melodrama ‘

The Fool- Responding to the madness of the state ‘the satire’

Apocalypse- The collapse of the state which leads to a new beginning (there is no single hero)

The film Eve includes aspects of ‘the pawn’ category as the teens feel as if they are trapped in this living nightmare. They cannot seem to escape her wrath throughout the film. However when read into deeper we see that our film may also reflect aspects of the fool genre as the madness of Crystal being sexually active, which is seen as negative in our patriarchal society is somewhat ‘fixed’ by Eves killing of the teenagers. She is essentially restoring the society to a patriarchal ideal.

Storyboards

This is a link to the animated storyboard we produced in order to get a feel of the way in which the trailer would work. As you can see there have been some adjustments in between this storyboard and the finished trailer. This is due to adaptions being made in order to create a strong sense of narrative within our trailer. The music used was chosen as it gives a clear sense of the genre, this was also adapted by the final edit.


Also here are some pages of our drawn storyboards with annotations and comments on the right hand side.

Q4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

There are many ways in which I have used media technologies to aid the production of my media texts. For the magazine front cover production and the poster I used mainly Microsoft publisher to put together the page because its features are easy to understand and fairly time effective. However for image manipulation I used adobe photoshop, this is because I required filters and certain manipulation features that were not available on publisher. For the creation of our trailer I used serif movie plus because it enabled us to edit our footage fairly easily.

As a way to plan and brainstorm as a group, we created a facebook group in order to share ideas and information. It also acted as an aid to organise cast and crew for filming dates.

When conducting our audience research i used the site questionpro to create a questionnaire.

After creating a 20 question survey we distributed it using social media sites such as facebook, twitter, blackberry messenger etc. the use of these sites proved very useful as we reached a large amount of respondants in the period of around a week.

 When i received my results, i decided to present them in a more aesthetically pleasing way, in order to this i entered the data into Microsoft Excel's chart wizard.





 This is the chart wizard, it allowed me to chose what type of graph to display my data in, it also has features to enable you to rename sections of the chart and recolour them.
The type of chart i used depended on what type of data i had collected. for example for questions where there was a larger range of responses I may have chosen to use a bar chart as it would have been more difficult to interpret a wide range of information of a pie chart or something similar.



When researching and analysing existing texts 'Google' proved to be very useful. using the 'advanced search' feature i was able to segregated the information i needed to aid my construction. Using 'Youtube' i found trailers for films such as 'Dead Mans Shoes' and 'The Shining'. The fact i was lucky enough to have access to these platforms means that i was able to put together my research fairly quickly whereas before the times of the internet i would of had to conduct research using local library facilities which would have taken much longer.

Adobe photoshop is a more professional software and requires time and patience in order to get the outcome expected. As a class we faced difficulties with the soft wares used such as adobe photoshop and serif movie plus due to the capacity of the hardware and the servers being very slow. However after many attempts I was finally able to create 3 professional standard media texts.

One of the main images I had to manipulate was the main typography of our film. 'Eve' is written in what can be seen as a 'chalk on blackboard' style. This reflects that our film is about a child. In order to create this image we used the site 'Dafont.com' and chose and appropriate font then print screened the page and isolated the title we created. Then we opened the isolated title image in adobe photoshop and used a feature that made the image negative. So instead of black writing on a white background we now had white writing on a black background. This meant some of the writing outline appeared pixelated so in order to fix this I erased the outline pixel by pixel using the eraser tool until I gained the desired finish.

Then, to give more of a sense of the genre i created a blood red shadow of the typography by copying the image then rotating and stretching it at the required angle. The effect of this is that the white innocence has a reflection of red evil and danger essentially.

When creating our trailer i used Serif Movie Plus. This proved to have its issues as our school computers did not have a wide enough capacity for it to run smoothly. Although we could drag clips onto the timeline easily and put together sequences well. it was difficult to playback what we had edited as it seemed 'jittery' and we could not get a clear idea of the pace of the trailer till we had exported the file and watched it using windows media player. However, Serif Movie Plus is an excellent choice for editing purposes as it is fairly easy to get to grips with and there are many good features we used in order to get our trailer to a good standard. Within our trailers there are shots that are black and white, this was done by clicking the required shot then going to effects and dragging 'Grayscale' onto the shot. We also sped up and slowed down shots by going to properties and typing in how much faster or slower we needed the running time to be. We also discovered by overlapping shots on the timeline it created a 'fade' effect and we could blend shots into each other as well as fade them in or out.

One of the main technologies we used was of course the film cameras. This required some preparation time in order to assure that each member of our group was familiar with things like how to change the focus and iris of the camera, how to set up the white-balance, and how to check that the audio is working. 

Q3) What have you learned from your audience feedback

When first creating my magazine front cover and poster templates i decided to show a focus group, consisting of teenage horror fans, the different styles as well as asking them to pick one they preferred. I also conducted individual interviews in which i used a 'semi-structured' style in order to gain quantitative and qualitative responses. Some examples of responses were:

'I think the red and black are good colours to use for a horror poster as you can tell its horror straight away'- This showed me that the audience were familiar with the conventions of horror films and they understand the connotations of these colours for example red has connotations of blood and gore and black has connotations of death.

'It might be better to use a closer shot of the killer so the page looks more full'. The shot I did use was a medium shot and although it was advised to go for a close up i purposely went against this as i wanted the red coat to be clearly visible in the poster and magazine front cover as it is iconic throughout our film.


Deciding I needed more insight into my target demographic I created a questionpro.com survey. The website enabled me to ask both quantitative and qualitative questions. I found from this that my survey was taken by mostly males which seems to point at the idea that the horror genre in genre as well as the slasher genre in particular seems to have a larger male audience. I also found that the majority of respondants were 15-20 year olds, however it might be worth taking into account that this may just be the nature of respondance rates and perhaps it is just a coincidence that 15-20 year olds are more likely to respond to a survey than the other age groups. This also had implications for the age certificate i gave my film, I proposed a 15 certificate would be appropriate due to the information I found out from my survey. This meant the content I included in my trailer had to be appropriate for this age range.

I also created a link to my trailer on Facebook, allowing people to comment on it about what they thought of the trailer. This also built up a hype for my movie and created an exchange between the audience and my production. The majority of comments were about the tension and how it was built during my trailer effectively. However people mentioned that the first caption slowed the flow of the movie down and creates imbalance within the trailer however it is then regained due to the soundtrack.

At the premier of our trailer we invited around twelve students to watch the trailer and fill out feedback questionnaires. They watched the trailer once and then filled out a questionnaire with set questions which were:
1. What do you think the storyline is?
2. What do you find scariest about this trailer?
3. What do you think about the soundtrack, explain?
4. Does this trailer fit the horror genre, explain?
5. What could be improved in our trailer?



 Here is an example of one response sheet which has been filled in by a student at our premier.

This participant overall enjoyed our trailer and thought it was effective. For the first question we asked what do you think the storyline is? This is an important question as it enables us to see if our narrative has come across to the audience effectively. The fact that this participant has almost perfectly explained the basic storyline shows us that we have achieved this.

 

They also thought the soundtrack was effective in creating suspense and building tension. This assures us that there will be an audience for our film after we have released the trailer. We know that the genre is easily identifiable. This is important as people may chose to watch a film solely based on the genre of it.

Although this respondant did not feel there was room for improvement other participants criticised the storyline, saying it left the audience wondering why the group of friends had gone into the woods. Implications for this may be that next time we would could have a stronger sense of the narrative within the trailer but remembering not to give away too much as we need to keep the audience guessing so that they will come to watch the film.

Narrative analysis of synopsis

Todorov:

Equilibrium- This is shown when the teenagers are walking along a road on a sunny day. They are suitably dressed to match their roles in the storyline so the audience can clearly pick out. 'The final girl', the sexually active friend, the alpha male, the alpha males right hand man, and the gay character. The equilibrium introduces us to the norms of their everyday life. As we can see they enjoy being outside and having a laugh.

Disruption- This is first seen when eve is noted to be gone from the swing. this disruption is what awakened the monster within 'Eve' however it could be said that the disruption actually occurs when the teens start to be aware they are being watched and hunted down. 

Attempt to repair disruption- This is when Tony and Keith plan to kill Eve. Also when Nora attempts to kill Eve

New Equilibrium- This is not seen in our movie as we have left the ending open so as to allow the audience to incorporate their own thoughts as to what has happened. Similarly in Halloween it is shown that Michael Myers has escaped and so the audience is left guessing as to what has happened to him.

Propp:


The villain; this is obviously Eve, who ironically is just an innocent little girl from our first perspective. In horror the villain is often the main character and the narrative is based around them.

The donor (gives the hero some magical object); this is an anonymous person who we do not see throughout the movie.
The (magical) helper who helps the hero in the quest; the friends all act as helpers especially Keith.
The princess (person the hero marries OR a dream or desire which is sought after in the same way); In our story there is no princess or romantic story intertwined however the ‘dream’ or ‘prize’ is there life
The dispatcher (who sends the hero off); This isn’t applicable to our story as there is no quest or mission that the group pursues. However the benefactors warns them NOT to go into the woods 
supposedly trying to send them away from the evil.

The hero/victim; This is Nora. She is the ‘final girl’ of the film who ultimately defeats Eve. She is a typical final girl as she has dull brown hair and the colours she wears are 'grannyish' this may reflect the fact she is the mature one of the group.
The false hero or usurper. This may be Keith and tony who first tried to kill Eve.

Barbara Creed:

The ‘monstrous feminine’ figure in our film is Eve. She is representative of the fear of castration or the ‘mother’ figure according to Freudian theory. However the fact she seems to be strong and not submissive also means the male audience can identify with her. Nora has been made less feminine so 
that the male audience can identify with her and there fear of her being killed or ‘castrated’ is 
reflected in their own fear of being castrated. There are no knives used in the film however Eve's 
presence is enough to strike the initial fear of castration.

Roland Barthes:

Action code: the who of the story is the group of friends who are the potential victims and focus of 
the film. The main setting of the film is the woods, this is a conventional horror location. Its shown in modern times so that the audience can relate to it. Eve has been missing for sometime and when she suddenly appears as a villain we see she has completely changed due to unexplainable causes. Perhaps she was kidnapped by someone evil who influenced her? The audience is left to imagine.

Semantic code: the story will be shown through a narrative viewpoint rather than through any characters, this is typical and will make the audience feel as if they are witnessing these deaths and events without any control over it.

Enigma code: there are many elements of mystery in our narrative, such as, how does Eve kill people without so much as a touch? Where has she been after she was kidnapped? Who will be the next to be killed?

Referential code: this will be shown in the mise en scene, the first girl to die will be overtly sexually promiscuous and dressed stereotypically to the convention.

Symbolic code: this involves connotations and iconography. Such as the character of eve, a little girl whos connotations will be evil and danger and this will be influenced by musical motifs associated with her and close ups of her anger.

Q2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

To aid the marketing of my film I created both a movie poster and a magazine front cover. My poster would be placed in areas where my target demographic would most likely spend time. Such as the cinema, bus stands and town centres. The aim of my poster is to capture the genre and narrative of my film and briefly exhibit it to the audience to encourage them to watch the film. It is important that the brand identity in all three texts are consistent in order to make the association between the texts easily recognisable.

One way in which I have done this is by using the same main image for both the poster and the magazine front cover. The image is of the monster 'Eve' looking towards the camera in a sinister way wearing a bright red coat. The fact she is addressing the camera directly gives the impression she is 'watching' and 'waiting' as the trailer states. It could be argued that her posture has elements of the male gaze within it as her head is canted which arguably makes her appear more submissive. However the way her head is canted is as if to challenge the viewer to watch this film. Also The position of her head is unnatural and gives the viewer a sense of discomfort and unease.
The red coat which acts as an inter textual reference is visible in both the main text and the ancillary texts. It's somewhat the signature of our monster and is used to note her presence the same way the Michael Myers mask is used in Halloween.

For my magazine front cover I decided to create my own magazine for a number of reasons. One being that horror magazines that were already available seemed to cost around £5 per edition. Due to research I knew that the magazine market was rapidly declining against the rate of inflation and I decided by creating my own magazine I could make it sell better by pricing It at around £2  thus gaining a wider audience. Another reason I decided to create my own magazine is that existing magazines such as Fangoria tend to have a very narrow demographic. Although the use of an existing demographic normally aids low budget productions as the audience already exists. I decided to create a magazine that may appeal to a wider range of people. I quickly realised that magazines such as Fangoria and Scars have many graphically disturbing pictures as there main image. Although this would be suitable for their target demographic it could be argued that they are 'scaring away' other horror fans who may not enjoy the disturbing images on the front. My image doesn't incorporate blood however the direct address eve gives the camera is discomforting enough to allow the audience to  understand  that it is a horror film being advertised.

The main image incorporates Eve wearing the red coat which is iconic throughout the film as a symbol of danger. The forest is shown behind her to incorporate the German expressionism aspect and exhibit her psychological landscape. I used green for my main typography for the 'Eve' story as green has connotations of nature as well as envy. It could be argued that this particular shade of green is reminiscent of the supernatural or aliens. This is symbolic of Eve being supernatural. most of my other typography was either white or black as these stand out best against the other colours. Red was used for obvious reasons it has connotations of blood and danger and also it gives a sense of the genre as red is used often in slasher films. The masthead of my film 'slasher' is written in red and white against a black background. The red characters are capitalised to give a sense of masculinity as slasher is a predominantly male aimed genre. The white 'A' is symbolic of a white chalk outline at a murder scene. This gives the audience a sense of the narrative. The red borders are reminiscent of the 'letterbox' effect used in our trailer. The large left margin in which i have placed my inside stories is similar to the effect used in Hitchcock's psycho poster.This intertextual reference may give the older audience a sense of nostalgia. As an additional incentive I have placed an advertisement for 'Childsplay' posters within the magazine. This may help to bring in customers as they may primarily want the free posters inside.


For my poster i used the same image. This is because i wanted the image to be familiar so that when people see it they know straight away it is for the movie 'Eve'. However the overall tone of my poster is much darker. Using photo manipulation i made the image darker this is important as we do not have a masked assassin like in other popular slasher films such as 'Halloween' and 'The Texas chainsaw massacre' however the picture here shows Eves face hidden almost by shadow which gives a sense of mystery like the 'Enigma code' that Roland Barthes proposed all films have. I then used a black border or 'frame' as it is similar to the letterbox effect i used in my trailer and therefore there is a sense of consistency. I then added the symbols for Warner bros, Film 4, and Dankershein. Warner bros and Film 4 are fairly well known companies and could help to bring in an audience for my film however Dankershein is a company we made up as an independent body which could become better known after the release of my trailer.
The trees behind this image create twisted and abstract shapes which can relate to German expressionism as this is a psychological landscape and is reflective of the little girls crooked mind. the tagline 'revenge is sweet' gives the audience a sense of the narrative and the genre. The audience can now assume that the revenge is being taken out by the little girl as little girls are usually seen as 'sweet'. This gives them a hint as to what the narrative is. Also the word revenge builds association with 'revenge films' which is an element of my slasher film. I chose to do the main writing in white as it stands out well against the darkened background. Also 'Eve' is written in a chalkboard effect which is reminiscent of two things, the first being childhood in classrooms and the second being chalk outlines of murdered people. These two themes of innocence and evil are binary opposites throughout my film. I chose to make this film a 15 because although it is a horror it does not have any gory parts to it which may cause discomfort to the viewer. however if i were to release my film i would have to send it to the BBFC for them to make a judgement as to what certificate my film should be. If it was to be released in the cinema the local councils would have the overruling say on what the age certificate should be. If the film was to be released onto DVD the BBFC's certificate would be legally binding due to the video recordings act 1984.

The companies that will distribute my film are Dankershein and Film4 productions. Both of these are British film companies that will be able to promote and distribute my film. My film is targeted at a niche British audience this is because Slasher films are often targeted at a niche audience anyways and due to my film having a degree of British social realism within it it could be seen that it will be more popular among British people. Dankershein is a small company which will need funding from other companies such as Film 4 and Warner Bros in both production and distribution.

Existing media research - Magazine Front Cover

Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge codes and conventions of existing media texts.

For our A2 media portfolio we were asked to create a trailer for a low budget horror film as well as a poster and magazine front cover to promote the trailer. We acknowledged the codes and conventions of existing media texts from the same genre and decided to follow many of the traditional conventions about the form of each text however we also challenged many conventions in order to create something different from the norm.

 'Eve' the trailer follows many basic codes and conventions of traditional slasher films. The camerawork has some elements of handheld camera which adds to the documentary realism of the narrative. Other ways in which this is shown in our trailer is by the use of a voice over in the voice of one of the characters within the film. The voice over is important as it helps the trailer along by giving a sense of the narrative, in doing this it also projects a sense of the genre. Also with the captions that come across in a 'typewriter' style reminiscent of police reports. This helps to tell the story and guide the audience through the trailer. The overall effect of this is that the narrative appears more factual. Although it is conventional for captions to appear in a trailer the fact ours is presented as a typed message reinforces the documentary realism. The handheld effect is reminiscent of other slasher films and is also seen in films such as 'Paranormal Activity' to boost its claims that it was a true story. Another camera technique we used were point of view shots. We decided to have a 'stalking' shot through the eyes of our monster in order to put our audience in the position if the monster. Similarly Spielberg did this in jaws, placing the audience in a position of discomfort.

The shot from jaws where we are placed in
the perspective of the shark. In short the audience
are made to feel as if they are the killer.

The use of the name 'Eve' is important in reference to our film because although it is easily recognized by the audience as a shortened version of 'Evelyn' which is the name of the little girl in our film who also turns out to be the 'monster', thus conveying a sense of narrative. 'Eve' is reminiscent of night and symbolic of the end of things. In this case, the end of the teenagers lives. Also, Eve in the story of 'Adam and Eve' brings on the fall of makind.

 Because our film is a low budget British horror, we needed to ensure the name of the film was something catchy that would be easily remembered by the viewer of the trailer. Other films have also done this in order to gain a large audience. Films such as 'Dead mans shoes' and 'Halloween' also have short minimum-syllable titles in order to make the audience remember the name of the film after they have watched the trailer.

Our Trailer is filmed in the woods which is an iconic location for horror films. Other locations that were mentioned in our questionpro were; a desolate house, an abandoned warehouse, an empty school after dark etc. The reason we chose the woods is because as a location it was more readily available and also it fit more suitably in with our narrative.

Another convention of trailers is montage editing. This is when several shots from the film are placed together in a non-chronological order in order to create meaning and build up the pace of the trailer therefore adding tension. The conventional form of a trailer incorporates a montage sequence which builds to a climax, examples of this is seen in trailers such as that for 'Queen of the damned' Our montage editing starts with the character Tony saying 'You go this way, I'll go that way' this puts the audience on edge as its something typical of slasher trailers for characters to be in danger once they are alone. then the pace starts to build as we see many characters running and then shots of Eve running as well  no shots are shown of eve actually attacking any of the teenagers however we focused on using the juxtaposition between the shots to help the audience understand that Eve is the killer. One example of this is the 'dragging' piece. This is when three shots were used to create the understanding that 'Eve' has dragged the body of one of the teens and thrown it into the lake.

The first shot of this sequence shows the character 'Keith' being dragged through the woods. Around him the grass and plants are quite clearly dead which gives reference to the fact that he himself has been killed. The fact we cannot see Eve dragging him and cannot fathom a little girl dragging a teenage boys dead body adds to the idea she is some sort of 'supernatural' force.

The next shot is of Eve in the woods. The scenery around her is reminiscent of German expressionism as the branches of the trees are twisted and slanted which is reminiscent of Eves twisted mind. The fact she is wearing red symbolises gore and danger.

The last shot is of a large splash in a lake. The surface of the lake seems to be black which is again symbolic of death. Subliminally the audience has understood the created meaning of these three shots and understands the dead body has now been dropped into the lake by Eve.

One way in which our film breaks conventions is the use of the character 'Eve' as our monster. Usually in slasher films the monster is an older masked assassin. We decided to go against this norm and use a little girl. This is important as little girls usually represent innocence and childhood which is something the teenagers in our film are on the verge of losing due them coming to the age of sexual maturity. The overall binary opposites of our film are innocence and evil. Many shots in our trailer reflect this.

'Dont Look Now' 

This shot on the left for instance mirrors the juxtaposition of innocence and evil in our film. On the left of the frame there is a playground. Playgrounds are generally representative of childhood and innocence, there is also aspects of yellow on that side of the frame which has connotations of life, sunshine and happiness. However the red bars seem to be separating 'Eve' from that. Red has connotations of evil and danger. Her jacket is also red, this is vital as it has intertexual reference to 'Don't Look Now' an 1973 film by Nicholas Roeg in which a father tries to come to terms with the death of his daughter who drowned wearing a red coat. He then thinks he sees her all over Venice and desperately tries to track her down only to be dissapointed. The right side of the frame shows tree shadows in slanted angles. This is reminiscent of German expressionism as the crooked setting is resemblent of the monsters crooked mind. It could be described as a 'psychological landscape'.

Another convention of slasher trailers is the use of 'the male gaze' this is when women are portrayed as weak and vulnerable in a sexualised way as if we are seeing them 'through the eyes of a man'. In this shot we see Tracy running. The camera is at a high angle putting her in a vulnerable position. Also the fact she is wearing a low cut top and is showing cleavage shows how even though she is in danger we are seeing her in a sexualised way. The fact she is wearing a lot of black alerts the viewer to the fact she is inevitably going to die. However due to the language of film being controlled by the norms of our patriarchal society this death doesnt affect the viewer as much as the message is subliminally telling us her death is punishment for her being sexually active.

Another way in which we developed pre- existing conventions of slasher films is with the use of 'typical' characters within the group of teenagers. 'Crystal' who is played by Susie Corquin is typically dressed revealingly and has a sultry attitude about her whilst on camera. Because our film fits into British social realism we decided not to go with the typical 'blonde bimbo' as this is not an accurate reflection of british society. Although she has brunette hair she still is quite clearly recognised as the supposed 'whore' character who we expect to die during the film.

Tony is the 'Athlectic alpha male' character of our film, he is played by James Morissey. His appearance also reflects the changed social ideologies that make up British social realism. Being of dual heiritage he has 'afro' hair. In earlier films it was quite common for the black male character to die during the film as there would quite often be a white main male character who ended up in a relationship with the leading female character. Representations of black men being 'sexually powerful' meant he posed imbalance to this new equillibrium. However in our film the 'black' male is the leading male character this also reflects how societys views have changed.

 

Our 'Final Girl' character is Nora who is played by Harissa Sheikh. As she is of Asian ethnicity we can associate her easily with being the book-worm type due to stereotypical representations of young Asian girls being very studious. The fact there is a mixture of ethnicities within our film goes against typical slasher films in which there is a predominantly white presence. Also, this again adds to the British social realism aspect as many areas of Britain especially London are very racially diverse.

 

 

Existing Media Research - Trailers

Dead Mans Shoes; A textual analysis

The trailer starts with non-diegetic music associative of the countryside, this sets the scene and we know the movie is set in a rural area. the setting is mostly green which has connotations of life and nature which give a positive mood to the start of the trailer. At this point the genre is not clear as the music seems quite relaxing which is unconventional of typical horror films. It could be said that this music introduces the equilibrium and reflects the calm loving relationship the two brothers share. In an early establishing shot Richard is shown carrying an army green knapsack which shows he has returned from the war. Also in the shot we see grey clouds moving towards the village which is a visual metaphor for ‘there is a storm coming’. 

We are then shown Richard walking along a typical horror location- isolated wilderness (the woods). The captions shown illustrate aspects of the narrative. The mood is quite calm when shown captions such as ‘a brothers love’ and we are shown home video type footage of the two brothers playing as babies, this aids illustration of the narrative. Shortly after we are shown fiery typography spelling out ‘a brothers revenge’ this is the turning point where the trailer changes and we see the horror element shown more blatantly throughout the rest of the trailer. This is a priority for this film as it is revealing Richards story so later in the film we can justify him as being the killer and identify with him as the ‘monster’ figure. There is no apparent 'monstrous feminine' in the trailer however it could be argued that Richard represents the fear of castration as he carries an axe-type weapon often and it could be argued that he robs the men of their 'masculinity' as they are scared of him.

Richard is shown against a grey gritty wall similar to German expressionism it could be argued that this suggests the crumbling foundations of his sanity. This location is conventional of horror films as desolate houses are often associated with evil. There is also a screeching sound and flashes of red which reinforces that this is a horror/slasher. The disruption is now introduced. Richard is shown wearing a war gas mask. This is important as a convention of slasher films is a masked monster such as that in 'Halloween' and 'The Texas chainsaw massacre'. The way in which this trailer challenges this convention is the fact that the 'masked monster' is the protagonist and the audience can identify with him as they understand his reason for killing.

Black and white footage is operated as a narrative device to divide the flashbacks from the rest of the sequence, it is also somewhat in slow motion indicating a dream- like perception of the past events. The flash transitions used are a convention of horror, thus building pace.  The transition from the bullying scene to men laughing designates to the audience that these are the malevolent characters of the narrative. The reiterated red flashes indicate danger and foreshadows murder, this has elements of a typical slasher. The pace increases once we get a sense of the narrative. There is also a non-diegetic compilation of a base note and then a light childish motif which is typically used to set a horror mood. Richard can be seen to be both the antagonist and the protagonist (binary opposites) or the leader of the ‘evil’ group can be seen as an antagonist. Richard is shown holding an axe which reflects his lunacy. We are then shown quotations from reviews which are a convention of low budget films as it helps to build an audience. The music dies out for impact as we see the title of the film. There is then the end card and a website people can visit to create media exchange or audience interaction.

The Shining intertextual analysis

‘The Shining’ presents a trailer which seems to break all the codes and conventions of the average movie trailer, there is no montage editing, we are not introduced to the characters in the typical way and only one shot is used the whole time. This is something the audience is not used to and therefore introduces their fear of the unknown; they are put in a state of discomfort as they are viewing something irregular with their typical viewing experience that does not fit their expectations of a film trailer. The trailer starts as a completely black screen then fades into a shot of a hotel lobby facing the lift doors. The completely black screen is used to keep the audience in suspense Kubrick uses the same tactic in '2001 a space odyssey  but for a longer amount of time. IT could be said that the use of it in this trailer is an intertexual reference to '2001 a space odyssey  and it causes the audience a similar feeling of discomfort. The lift doors are red which has connotations of blood and danger, the surrounding furniture is brown and comfortable to reinforce the location. We then see credits rolling upwards the way you would expect a lift shaft to. The typography is capitalised and thin, typical of thriller type movies. There is also the sound of a ticking clock and another percussionist noise which builds pace and tension. The discreet sound similar to a swarm of bees causes uncomfortable experience for the audience. There is then another base note and the pace builds, we hear a strange ‘alien’ noise slightly different to the buzzing noise which builds the audiences discomfort. We then see a ‘wave’ of blood seep through the lift and splash against the walls; it reaches the camera completely covering it till we are viewing the lobby through the blood. The discomforting noises build up representative of the ‘monsters’ psychotic mind.  We are then again submerged in darkness and the trailer ends. The reason why this was successful is because the film is by Stanley Kubrick who is a well-known director. People may watch the film just because they know he directed it. However in our film we may have to follow the typical trailer style as we are not well-known directors and need to build an audience through the quality of our trailer.

Finished Magazine front cover

 

 

Finished Poster

Finished Trailer

Magazine front page templates

Synopsis

EVE Synopsis”

The film starts with a swing…There’s a little girl in a red coat swinging on it. The only noise that can be heard is the rusty screech of the swing and a quite song sung by the girl. We only see the back of the little girls head.

The first time we see Eve she’s holding hands with her mother and they are walking through a park. The mother engages in a conversation with her friend ignoring Eve’s cries for attention. Getting fed up with Eve’s moaning she lets go of her hand and continues with her conversation. After a couple of minutes she reaches out for Eve but finds that she is not there. She looks around in panic calling out for her without any luck. She realizes Eve has disappeared. 

People rush to the woman’s help and contact the police. The police arrive soon after and ask witnesses for statements but no one is able to one as everyone claims not to have seen or heard her when she disappeared or in fact anything suspicious happening at the market. Therese, Eves mother, is rushed to the police station where she contacts her ex-husband who always blamed her of being a bad mother and for the past several years tried to get custody of Eve, without any luck. They argue about Eve’s disappearance both blaming each other for her gone missing and eventually are split up by the police officers. After further questioning, Theresa is told to go home and await further information. She gets home, sits on the sofa and clutching Eves blanket, cried herself to sleep.

A few years after Eve’s disappearance we come across a group of friends; Crystal Lake, Tony Hutch, Keith Mount, Nora Clark and Benny James. It is evident from the start that the leaders of the group are Crystal and Tony, the pair is also together. They don’t seem to care about anyone but themselves and spend most time together as opposed with anyone else in the group. Although they’re not bad kids, they like to cause trouble in their little town and are regarded by everyone else as someone you should stay away from. However you can’t miss Nora doesn't really belong to the group as she’s quite plain and doesn't talk much and hates it when the group does something stupid which they tend to do a lot.

We see them walking through the same market Eve went missing in. They are laughing and having a good time, totally oblivious to what happened there only a few days ago. They come across some flowers which have been laid down in Eve’s memory as the whole town believes there’s no hope in finding her again. Tony accidently steps on the flowers and kicks them away without any regret and walks away making a joke of it as the rest of the group laugh along with him. They walk towards Tony’s car and decide to go for a ride around the town.

As they get in, Crystal starts playing with the radio and after coming across a few bad music stations, leave the radio on a news broadcast after hearing the name of their town. The broadcast talks about a little girl that has recently gone missing and appeals for anyone with any information to come forward and contact the police. The group listen intently and soon realize that the flowers they trampled on where meant for the little girl. They look at each other shocked but soon forget about the whole thing. Suddenly, Tony loses control of the car and quickly brakes. When he tries to start again, the car doesn't move. They are now stranded in the middle of an empty road at the edge of town totally surrounded by woods. They all blame each other until they come to the conclusion that no one will probably come across them any time soon and they should all go and look for help themselves or end up being stranded in the woods at night. By this time, it already starts to get dark and they need to act quickly. They start walking together, not wanting to break up but soon realize that they have more of a chance to fins help if they split up and go in different directions. Tony, Crystal and Benny walk one way and Nora and Keith go the other way. At this point things are starting to turn strange. Nora and Keith see a silhouette of a person in the distance and run towards it, happy that thy found someone who could help them. Instead they see an old man who just stares into the distance mumbling about terrible things happening in the woods. Not wanting to spend another minute with the man, they run away terrified.

In the meanwhile, Tony and Benny joke about how fun it would be to send the night in the woods and make a lot of noise. Fed up Crystal, who is terrified of being in the woods at night has a go at the boys and makes her way back to the car where she claims she’ll wait out the night alone if she has to. As she makes her way back towards the car, she starts to choke and grabs on to her throat. She feels herself being pulled up by something that feels like a thick rope tied around her neck. She tried to struggle but she can’t see what she’s struggling with and soon gives up on the fight, being the first one of her friends to die. We can see her legs dangling from her lifeless body.

Realizing that they have been immature and making the situation worst for Crystal, Benny and Tony come back to look for her. Following in her tracks, they call her mobile and follow the sound of the ringtone which leads them to her dead body. Tony looks at his girlfriend’s body terrified and scream. Benny does the same and they both run away. They stop once they think they have gone far enough and try to evaluate their situation. Being totally lost in the woods now, they start to realize that the only way to get out is to find the rest of the group and try to find their way to their car and get out of there. They start walking fast, keeping a look out for anything strange as they struggle to find Nora and Keith They then hear a scream, a familiar scream. Realizing that it is Nora they rush to help her, fearing that something horrible happened again. They find her terrified and she tells them that when they were walking around looking for help, Keith went ahead and when she caught up to him she found his dead body covered in scars and foam at his mouth. The boys tell her about Crystal and all three of them start to run away, anywhere, in any direction just trying to get away as fast as they can. As Benny and Nora run together they realize that they lost Tony. They go back to get him, fearing that the same thing happened to him. They find his body covered in scars and blood and start running away again. Whenever they try to run away they end up in the same spot as they were before and start to come to terms with their inevitable death. As they gather the strength to run again, Benny is pulled away and dragged on the floor begging Nora to save him, as he’s dragged to the river Nora chases after him but can’t catch up, doesn't get there in time and watches her friend drown.

As she’s about to give up as well, she decides to make a run for it and save herself. She runs for hat seems like forever and surprisingly finds herself at the edge of the road. When she sees a car she pulls it over and tells the driver to drive away as fast as he can. As they drive off, she looks out the widows and sees a little girl in a red coat standing on the edge of the woods, smiling. The driver tried to communicate with her but Nora is too devastated to say a word.

It turns out later that the little girl that was kidnapped at the park has been locked and cruelly abused in an old shed in the woods. Her tortures made her turn from an innocent girl to a blood thirsty animal seeking revenge on anyone who enters the woods. Especially those who took her disappearing as a joke.

Brief

Harissa Sheikh. As an A2 Media Studies student our task was to create a marketing campaign for a low budget film that uses or challenges conventions from the slasher genre. My blog consists of an original film poster, trailer, and magazine front cover. The blog will also show the progression of my efforts in order to create the final product. This involves research, templates, audience research and application of media theory. As a group we filmed, edited and perfected the slasher trailer. This required the use of qualitive and quantitive data to make important decisions about the required product. As individuals we created our own posters and magazine front covers to advertise our film using original images and image manipulation software.

Firstly, we constructed our own market research to investigate my target audiences interest in horror films. I did this by creating a questionnaire on www.questionpro.com which enabled me to ask my sample both quantitive and qualitative data. i asked question such as what is your favouraite horror film? After creating this i pasted the link to my questionnaire to social media and messanging services such as facebook, twitter and blackberry messenger.

I used this information to build together an audience profile as a reflection of the demographic i was trying to reach. This helped me to specify my texts to the target demographic.

Call sheets/other filming documents

A Supreme Production

Black Screen Studios

“EVE”

Director: Alan Smithee   Producer: Devan Nathvani, Jodine Cogle, Magdalena Ploch, Harissa Sheikh   Co-Producer: Helen King   Executive Producer: Roger Larry

Call Time: 17:30PM   Shooting Time: 17:30PM   Date: 20/01/2013   Day of shooting: 5/10     Weather:                 L8°  H10°

 

Emergency Contact Numbers: Local Police- 5 The Oaks                           Ruislip, Middlesex                         HA4 7LF                        020 7230 1212   Local Hospital-  Rickmansworth Rd,                              Northwood HA6 2RN                              01923 826111

 

Scene Description	Scene number	Cast	Location
The group are in the woods, it is getting dark and their car just broke down. They decide to find their own way out and walk around. They then decide to split up and walk in different directions.     Crystal’s death scene. Hanging from the tree.	41-53                       55	Crystal Lake Keith Mount Tony Hutch Nora Clarke Benny James Eve	Ruislip Lido Reservoir Road HA4 7TY   01895250111

 

NOTE: A HOT MEAL WILL BE PROVIDED AT 20:00PM

 

CAST	CHARACTER	CONTACT NUMBER
James Morrissey	Tony Hutch	07*********
Leslie Pang	Benny James	07*********
Susie Corquin	Crystal Lake	07*********
Christopher Seymour	Keith Mount	07*********
Harissa Sheikh	Nora Clarke	07*********
Neva Holm-Sharp	Evelyn Taylor	07*********